Coronavirus pandemic | How COVID-19 spread through an AC duct at a Chinese restaurant

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Before China’s Wuhan, which is the epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease, was locked down completely, a family from the city had dined at a restaurant in Guangzhou. With little restrictions in place and much lesser knowledge on the potency of the deadly disease, its symptoms, or how it spreads, the family had unwittingly ended up becoming carriers of the disease.

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The incident had taken place in January when the global community was gradually shifting its attention to the new virus that was fast killing those infected. One of the members of the family in question was a silent carrier of the deadly virus and eventually became the source of nine other COVID-19 cases, reported the New York Times. Four of them were family members of the infected 63-year-old woman, who later also tested positive for the virus, while the rest were diners at the restaurant.

Although those who got infected never interacted with the family of the carrier, they contracted the disease when the virus travelled through the air conditioner duct of the restaurant. Only the members of the three other families that were seated near the carrier family contracted the disease, whereas the 73 other diners and the staff remained unaffected.

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The curious case was studied by experts in China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, who concluded that the AC placed above one of the tables close to the carrier family blew over the surrounding tables before it hit the wall and returned, thus infecting the susceptible ones in its way. They noted that droplets carrying the novel coronavirus might have got transmitted through the AC duct, the airflow of which explains why members of only some families contracted the disease, while others escaped it.

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